Nanjing Road in 1937 just after a bomb struck Photo: Courtesy of the Shanghai Municipal Archives

Rare photographs of early Shanghai, some dating back more than a century, have gone on display at the Shanghai Municipal Archives.

Part of a collection of more than 3,000 photos by Francesco Maria de Taliani, the Italian ambassador in China from 1937 to 1946, the pictures include scenes of Fuzhou Road, the Bund and the Huangpu River in the 1920s. Some of them show Shanghai as it was during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937-45).

During his time in China, de Taliani took some of the photographs himself but also obtained pictures from expats and foreign soldiers stationed in the city.

One of de Taliani's relatives, the Spanish painter and collector Carlos Morell Orlandis, restored these photos and this month donated more than 1,000 digital images to the Shanghai Municipal Archives.

Among the visitors to the exhibition on Monday was Stefano Beltrame, the Consul General of Italy in Shanghai, who was hugely impressed by the collection amassed by his predecessor.

"De Taliani was the first ambassador of Italy in China after World War II and the fall of fascism. He was a personal example of resistance against fascism, and the democratic rebirth of Italy after World War II," Beltrame said after he visited the exhibition.

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